


Morning Optics

by yikesola



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2018, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Tour Fic, interactive introverts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 17:08:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17227970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yikesola/pseuds/yikesola
Summary: Phil fell asleep in his contacts. It hurts like hell and he might get a headache later, but it’s arguably worth it for the view.A fic about tour tiredness and having a moment just to look.





	Morning Optics

They’d gotten to the hotel in Milton Keynes so late last night that Phil had just plopped onto the bed and fallen asleep instantly. He was exhausted already, even though they’ve only done two shows and one city into what will be 80+ performances of a 16-country world tour— it’s far, far too early to already be feeling like this. 

But his travel sickness means that the long days on the road are taxing on him in a way they simply aren’t for Dan. And his nerves around the preparation for the show meant that he was already wearing thin before they’d even started. 

He’s hoping he’ll get a second wind before long, when they start taking aeroplanes places or a tour bus which won’t make him quite so ill. When he’s less nervous over the more intimate aspects of the show, when he knows for certain he could perform it in his sleep. Then he’ll be better. Then he’ll have energy again. 

For now, he’s tapped out. 

He doesn’t remember anything after his head hit the pillow last night. Doesn’t remember brushing his teeth, which he notices as he starts to wake up and takes stock of some particularly harsh morning breath. He also doesn’t remember taking his shoes off, but Dan seems to have taken care of both his shoes and his jeans for him because he isn’t wearing any of these things now. 

As he blinks his eyes open tentatively in the morning light, Phil realizes something else he’d skipped out on last night. He never took his contacts out, clearly evident by the dry burning he feels and the very dull headache waiting to grow. It doesn’t feel like one of his bad headaches, feels like it’s rooted in an entirely different part of his head, feels like it’s solely the fault of sleeping in his contacts. 

Which he’ll take any day over a bad headache, certainly. 

He’ll get up, he’ll take his contacts out, he’ll take some tablets and some eye drops. Then he’ll spend the morning in his glasses before putting in a fresh pair of contacts before showtime. It’ll be fine. 

Before he does any of this, though, he turns his head towards a still-sleeping Dan and enjoys the crystal clear view.

He never gets clarity like this first thing in the morning. At best he can squint, but even that won’t sharpen his vision to see Dan’s features as much as he likes. It won’t let him see Dan’s dusting of freckles, it won’t let him see the laugh lines by Dan’s eyes. Sometimes Dan sleeps so lightly that even Phil shifting as gently as he can manage towards the bedside table to reach for his glasses will still wake him up. 

So despite the weariness already settling into his bones, already at this unbearably early stage in a very long journey ahead of him, despite the ache behind his eyeballs which are so angry at him for making them needlessly suffer all night, Phil’s not going to waste this opportunity.

He looks at Dan sleeping, curled up on his side and facing him only a foot or so away. His chin is tilted down into his chest and Phil can feel his heavy, steady breath. 

Dan’s hair is wildly curling, frizzed out from the rain that had been falling when they pulled up to the hotel and from running his hands through it as he fell asleep. Phil, though he’d already been asleep himself by that point, can picture how Dan’s long fingers would’ve been threading through his curls, looking for an outlet for the nervous energy that they both seem to be made up entirely of ever since the tour prep started in full swing. 

Phil wants to stick his face in that mess of curls, to tickle Dan’s scalp with his nose, to breathe him in deep. Maybe he will later. Maybe that’s how he’ll wake Dan up. For now, though, he wants to keep looking. 

The crinkles around Dan’s eyes aren’t very pronounced when he’s relaxed with sleep like this. But the ghosts of his laugh lines are there, the tracks that will deepen when he’s awake, when he’s smiling. 

Phil remembers a younger Dan who didn’t have those lines. A younger Dan with younger skin, who didn’t smile nearly so much as he does now. A Dan who didn’t sleep so peacefully as he is in this moment. Phil can remember a Dan who slept fitfully at odd hours, with nightmares he didn’t even want to relive long enough to write down in his dream journal. Phil can remember a Dan who wasn’t able to sleep at all. 

Remembering this makes him sentimental. Makes his heart thump for the Dan that lies before him. It makes him want to shuffle forward and kiss every freckle he can see across the bridge of Dan’s nose. 

And he almost does, but he wants to keep greedily staring— while he can, while it’s still tender and not Edward Cullen-esque. 

Dan takes in a sharp breath as though he can feel Phil’s eyes on him, but he doesn’t wake up. He just lets the breath out as his body sinks with it and Phil’s eyes travel over to Dan’s shoulders. 

Dan’s broad shoulders that have broadened with the years. 

Dan’s shoulders that look so inviting right now, warm and bare. He has the urge to bite them, like he did when he saw Dan for the first time at the Manchester train station, like he has countless times in the nearly nine years he’s known him. A gentle bite, to release his bottled energy, to remind Dan that he’s here. But again, he resists the urge to move. 

He lifts his eyes back up to Dan’s face and they land on the rosy patch by his jaw, and his parted lips that are surprisingly less chapped than they might be if Dan hadn’t packed a gargantuan supply of chapstick for the tour. The rosy patch is subtle as Dan sleeps, faint and hardly there, but the sunlight is falling on it from the part in the centre of the curtains like a spotlight and Phil finally stops resisting when he feels the urge to kiss it. 

He lifts himself up onto one elbow and bends down over Dan’s rosy patch to press his lips against it before shifting over to Dan’s forehead. He plants a kiss there as well, then continues moving up to Dan’s hair and burying his face among the curls he hopes to suffocate in someday. 

Dan’s breathing changes beneath him and he starts to stir awake. Phil moves down to Dan’s mouth and kisses him awake properly. 

“Morning, sleepy,” Dan says with a croaking, hardly-awake voice as he pulls back and raises his arms above his head to stretch. 

“Morning, you,” Phil says, kissing him again as soon as Dan’s spine has cracked and he’s settled back among the pillows. “Thanks for sorting out my shoes and jeans. I still have contacts in though.” 

“Well, I can’t do everything, Phil. You really want my giant fingers clawing into your eyeballs while you try to swat me away because you’re so blinking tired?” 

Phil kisses him again instead of bothering to answer. 

One of their phone alarms starts going off, the earliest optimistic one that’s supposed to give them enough time before they’re really due anywhere to eat and shower and get a bare-minimum exercise in (or simply forgo that last bit in favour of some cheeky hotel morning sex… and, well, no one need concern themselves with which route they’ll choose). They’re both rather surprised they were up before the alarm in the first place, but Phil blames it on his eyes which are more than irritated by now and demanding immediate attention. He heads to the bathroom and does what he can. 

When he comes out of the bathroom, Dan cradles Phil’s face in his hands, and leans in to get a good look at his eyes. “They aren’t too red. How they feel?” 

“They’ll be fine. I probably should’ve just gotten up and taken the contacts out when I first woke up.” 

“Why didn’t you?” 

Phil laughs, leans forward to kiss the tip of Dan’s nose and cover Dan’s hands still around his face with his own. “Was enjoying the view.” 

The rosy patch blushes a little darker when Dan laughs. “Oh, were you?” He lets go of Phil’s face to pull aside one of the curtains on the window. Outside their hotel room is the brick wall of the building beside them. “Hell of a view, mate.” 

“Oh, that’s lovely,” Phil says, rolling his eyes. “Actually,” he reaches for his phone, “that’ll make a good first instastory of the day.” They’re trying to get into the habit, now that they’re actually outside the apartment, to give their viewers some frequent informal content. “Hush now,” he warns Dan as he opens up the app.

“Go on then,” Dan smiles, sitting down on the edge of the bed. 

Phil pulls the curtain closed again, and says, “There’s nothing like starting the day with a _beautiful_ view. You ready?” He reaches up to pull the curtain back and reveal the lacklustre scene. “Look at that brickwork! And that colour! Oof—”

Dan’s shaking with stifled giggles when Phil sets his phone down on the bedside table. “You utter pork rind,” he says. 

“Hey, I’m a pork rind who’s now one story ahead of you for the day! You’d better catch up.” 

“It ain’t a competition, Legolas,” Dan says, “No need to slay an oliphant’s worth of instastories first thing in the morning.” 

“You’re just saying that because you’re behind.” 

“Right, right, sure I am.” Dan shakes his head, his smile wide, his eye crinkles deep. Phil pokes his finger into Dan’s right dimple and Dan swats his hand away. They’re both laughing as the swats turn into a play fight that neither of them bothers to determine the winner of.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading— come say hi on [tumblr](http://yikesola.tumblr.com/post/181555933814/morning-optics) !


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